Wonderland
by Aimee Coleman
Summary: Abby has a normal life until her aunt on her death bed gives her a mysterious locket with a creepy inscription. When her Aunt dies, Abby begins to hear voices and see shadows. Will she have enough courage to go through the looking glass?
1. Chapter 1

**Wonderland**

**Chapter 1**

**My dad always taught me that there would always be more than one solution per problem. The problem for me was, dad wasn't there after I was seven to help me find the second solution to my problems. My mom wasn't there, but my aunt Katarina was, bless her, always there for me, along with my uncle Morris. She taught me everything, home schooled me, and got cancer when I was thirteen. Before she died, she gave me something.**

"**Abigail, Abby is that you?" she asked, doped up on meds, her eyes glassy, her cap slipping off to reveal the purple bruises not just on her face, but escaped all around her tired body. **

"**Yes, aunt," I said, stifling back the tears as best I could manage.**

"**I want to give you something before I go, get me that wood box there on the dresser," she lifted a weak, pale finger, then coughed softly into a handkerchief until their were small specks of red, dotted here and there on the thin, worn cotton. **

**I turned to the wooden dresser, filled with beaded necklaces and a lace covering in which almost fifty pins were secured snug, all of them antique, all of the hers. A wood box with a parquet lid of oak and cherry wood rested close in front of the old mirror. The little silver clasp was rusted and had broken long ago, the lid and it's base held together by a single piece of twine twisted in the lock, despite the freshly installed hinges, free of damage, put on last year by Uncle Morris.**

**I lifted the box with gentle care and swiftly brought it to aunt Katarina. She looked paler as she tried to lift the box, it seemed a great load to her, small and easy to carry to me. She had small deft fingers however, and quickly undid the lock on her lock. Inlaid in a bed of gold velvet was a locked, carved vines twisted around the outline of the heart shaped metal. She opened it, and some words were scrawled on the left side in almost unreadable script. **

**She held a smile for a brief second, then gathered enough wind for speech, "It says, 'Curiosity is the key to all happiness, if you know how to use it,'."**

"**What does it mean, auntie? Please tell me what it means."**

"**I can't my darling, you have to figure that out, figure out that riddle for me, I never could." she fastened the locket around my neck, the cold clasp shocked me, I almost gasped. I touched the metal, it was cold, almost as cold as aunt Katarina. Uncle Morris called me and I went out. It was his turn to sit with Aunt. He closed the door behind him. **

**For a second, I sat there outside the door, eavesdropping. I could hear him talking to her, her soft snores soon filled the room, then, all of a sudden, the snores stopped. Uncle Morris kept talking to her, about me, him their wedding oh so long ago right after high school, then they went away so he could use his scholarship and go to college. It was a love story. **

**Then, he gasped and before I knew what I was doing, I pushed the door open and looked. Aunt had gotten so much more pale, she looked like a ghost, with veins. Her chest wasn't moving and her mouth was closed. She wasn't breathing. I walked over and touched my locket, uncle Morris looked up at me, eyes sullen. Then he hugged me, and I just stood there. We both cried because we both knew that she was gone. **

**Her funeral was in the living room. I made a special glass vase with her art supplies and kiln down in the basement for her ashes. She would rest forever with her name etched on the vase. Uncle Morris placed the vase on the mantle, under the mirror she loved, taken from her dresser. She so very much loved that mirror and she never said why. She would softly stroke the cherry wood frame surrounding the liquid-like clearness. **

**The night after her funeral, I woke up to the sound of laughter. Soft tinkling, bell-like laughter pealed from the living room. I put on my robe and slippers and peered outside my room. I knew there wouldn't be a party, my uncle disliked parties as much as someone dislikes a sunburn. I opened the door an inch more and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. I began to walk to the banister to go downstairs when I realized that my slippers were making a noise. I slid them off and put them by my door. **

**Shadows and the clinking of glasses sounds wafted up from the downstairs room up to where I was. I tiptoed down to the banister and walked down, holding onto the railing and letting my hand run down the smooth wood, polished to glossy perfection. The noises grew louder each time I placed my foot on a step down. Then, on the second-to-last step, the noises vanished, but the shadows remained. They were so fuzzy and blotchy, I could hardly make them out. **

**When I stepped from the staircase to the floor, the shadows floated off, gasping, to the front of the fireplace. Before I could get further into the room enough, they were gone, vanished. I walked back up to my room, hoping that I would hear the sounds of the happy shadow people again, there hadn't been laughter in the house in so long. I let my hand stroke to the locket, and let my mind wonder to Aunt Katarina. **

**The next day, I sat at breakfast with Uncle Morris. He was sullen, hadn't spoken since the funeral. He wouldn't want to talk about what I had seen last night. I debated whether I should say something, or should I keep my mouth shut, some mention like that could bring up Aunt, if she had anything to do with the shadow people downstairs. That last thing he needed was to be reminded of her, to days after she, you know. **

**So I left it alone. The next night, I got up and sat by my bedroom window with some hot coffee, I would find those shadow people, no matter what it took. By then I had become convinced that they had something to do with Aunt and the locket, something. Something to tell me why she died only two weeks after she was diagnosed. There had to be something more. Something more, the word kept echoing in my mind until it went blank. **

**I woke up to a cold breeze, and the clinks of glasses and disembodied laughter. I had fallen asleep. I quickly whipped on my clothes, jeans and a tee shirt, where ever these shadows were going, I was going too. I put my blue sweater over my arm and made sure the locket was securely over my neck. **

**I walked down the stairs, a secret hope of seeing the shadows face to face concealed hotly inside stirred as I reached the last stair. The shadows raised what might have been their heads and looked at me. They stared, then floated away **


	2. Chapter 2

**I followed them, in hopes of catching, but still walked mesmerized behind them. The lights blew out like someone had blew a little over a candle, and the flame went out. I could still see the shadows and feel their presence. **

**All the shadows gathered towards the fire place and one by one touched Aunt Katarina's mirror and one by one, slowing sank and disappeared into the mirror. There were seventeen shadows in all, seventeen seconds I didn't breath, but just watched. When they were gone, I just stared at the mirror, which had taken on a liquid-like appearance, unnoticeable without a tired eye only filled up on coffee and I kept rubbing my eyes, I felt like I was in a dream, but something told me to go to the mirror. **

**I went, and peered in, a girl with red-gold curls and violet eyes stared back, she looked tired, very tired and pale. She bit her lip, trying like me to figure out who was staring back at her, who was this stranger? Was she staring into a mirror too? It took me a minute to get my head on strait, another quick minute to realize this mesmerizingly beautiful girl was me. **

**I reached out my hand to touch the liquid glass encased in it's wicker-like setting. My hand felt like it was going through water, it felt like putting your hand in a bowl of water, breaking the surface and then letting your hand be submerged. My hand completely disappeared and when my brain registered that fact, it registered the reflex and I pulled my hand out, but it felt like pulling my hand out of jelly. I ignored my instincts and pushed my hand back in, letting the soft, sinking feeling wash over it. **

**As another reflex kicked in, I went to pull my hand out. It wouldn't budge. Why? Why couldn't I leave? What was going on? My mind filled with these questions beyond it's capacity and I had no choice but to go deeper into the mirror. I put both hands in a felt them around for something to grab on to. Suddenly, beyond the mirror, I felt a ledge and I began to pull my self through the mirror, inch by inch until I was encased in the mirror, and falling. **

**Chapter 2**

**A sinking feeling washed over me like raindrops, little sprinkles here and there, cold and wet, then the rain's pace began to quicken and it was a thunderstorm. Complexly opposite of what I saw, swirling colors, all of the rainbow, some I had never even seen but recognized as colors. Suddenly I had a deep appreciation for the little fact and aspect such as color, and then I hit the ground. **

**A big roaring sounded and everything felt wet, cold wet rock sat beneath me, hardly cushioning my fall and I blinked my eyes through a gray fuzzy picture, what happened to the colors? I was in a cave, behind a waterfall. I looked at the rushing falls for a minute until I felt less dizzy, enough to stand. I stood and walked over to the falls and put my hand through, the falls parted for my hand then met again underneath. The cerulean-blue falls resumed it's natural position when I took my hand away. **

**Then I placed both hands in. The water fall parted with my hands, like opening two curtains. It didn't wet my hands like I would have thought, but stayed dry. I walked through out onto a rock and saw a tiny grove of willow trees, sun peeking through just a little. White mushrooms dotted with green, themselves dotted around in fairy rings, were entwined with lilac flowers. I turned around on my heel slowly, a rocky cliff sat, an almost cheeky smile to it's composure. The water turned out into a river and flowed off through the trees. I stepped out from the ledge in front of the falls to walk to the bank on a path of little stones. **

**Everything looked cut out a pasted from a fairy tale, Snow White? Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Or maybe Little Red Riding Hood. I half expected a little pink butterfly to come up and start speaking to me. Instead, I heard thick metallic screeching, rocks being mashed together, forming a solid stone wall. I ran to the river but felt like someone had tied lead weights to my ankles. I slid across the bank and into the river, running. I skidded through the falls and into the inner cave, just in time to catch a last glimpse of the colors I saw, before the rocks mashed together again. **

**I began to bang on the wall, not caring that I was going to get the soft parts of my fists bruised black and blue. Suddenly it hit me, I wasn't going home any time soon. I touched my locket, the metal was warm from being pressed against my skin. I opened it and read the mysterious inscription, "Curiosity is the key to happiness," I whispered. I said it over and over again as I walked across the little stones to the bank. I went to edge of the cliff and sat down on the grass and buried my hands in my head, still whispering the stupid verse over and over so much I began feeling overly sick. I didn't notice until my jeans were wet that I was even crying. I stopped saying the verse and let my self be consumed by the pathetic, unnecessary sobbing. I let it out until the sobs quieted down, then picked right back up into wailing. **

**I couldn't stop it!**

**There was just something that wanted me to cry, even after I was willing myself to stop, but my body shook and the gallons of tears still poured. I let the wails continue while I tried to figure out why I was crying. It was like I was inside a shell, a crying shell filled to the brim with tears and sad feelings while I was inside trying to drown and figure out why I couldn't stop. **

**After several thoughts, I concluded that I never cried when my dad disappeared, when my mom died that night in a car accident, only dry sobs when Aunt Katarina died. My feelings were catching up to me and I felt myself be consumed in them again, completely absorbed in feeling sorry for myself, that the only person I had was miles, possibly even **_**worlds**_** away from me and I was God-knows-where crying my heart out, no wonder I felt this why. **

**I continued for what seemed like hours and I still wasn't done with my breakdown. I cried until I heard a soft voice say something. Still covered in tears and my heard buried in my knees I asked, "What?"**

"**I said, don't cry. I hate it when girls cry." **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**I looked up at the voice and wiped my face with my sweater's sleeve. A boy was there, looking at me with a shy smile on his face, turning a little pink. He had honey-colored hair and al least three different shades of green and hazel in his eyes. I cocked my head at him and he reached out his hand. I took it and let him pull me up. He was cuter up close, I could notice his cute little chipmunk-cheeks.**

**He studied me for a minute and then said, "I'm Anthony."**

"**I'm Abigail, but everyone calls me Abby."**

"**Why did you change your name?" "Abby's my nickname, don't you have one?"**

"**No, no one shortens anyone else's name."**

"**Well I'll help you with that. Anthony, Tony. There, you can be Tony."**

"**Okay?"**

"**What?" I asked.**

"**Nothing," he replied as though it were nothing. **

**I straightened out my locket and brought it out from under my sweater to let the clasp straight behind my neck. It shone a little, and it glinted and set off a rain of light that shined on Tony's face. He back away, but looked closer, peering his hazel-green eyes in for a better look at the gold. He reached out a finger and touched it, he gasped and stepped back.**

"**It shocked me," he said, "how-"**

"**I don't know, that's why I'm here. To figure it out." I said, "can you help me?"**

"**I guess I could, I mean we can always ask the Prince of Hearts."**

"**Who?"**

"**The Prince of Hearts? Over in the royal city. Don't you know? He knows everything there is to know about anything and everything and everyone."**

"**Like Alice in Wonderland?"**

"**You know about the great Alice?"**

"**So this is Wonderland?"**

"**Yes, but you didn't answer my question?"**

"**Which one? The one about Alice?" he nodded, "I don't know any Alice except my grandmother, she died, but I think her name was Alice. Yeah, Alice, um. Alice something."**

"**Alice Anne?"**

"**How did you know?"**

"**Everyone knows about Alice, she and the March Hair and my Grandfather, the Mad Hatter, overthrew the Queen of Hearts and helped place her son on the throne. The current prince is his son. That Alice must have been your Grandmother."**

"**She did disappear for a long time when she was a child, when they found her she was raving about the Queen of Hearts and the new Prince and The Mad Hatter. She was on medication for a long time."**

"**She was here for years planning the revolt with the rebels. She practically planned the whole thing, along with the Duchess."**

"**The Duchess?"**

"**You're not from here are you?"**

"**Of course not!" I said, "I fell through my Aunt's old mirror-" I told him about Aunt Katarina, when the name Katarina fell in to conversation, his face lit up.**

"**You knew Katarina too?"**

"**She was my aunt, what did she help lead another revolution?"**

"**Somewhat. The Queen of hearts tried to take the throne again and Katarina stopped him, all in a year too, a record in the Wonderland Record book."**

"**Geez, you all are nuts, she never went missing, you twit."**

"**How do you know?"**

"**I studied her life, Uncle Morris told me to be a writer and write her biography one day, he made me study her life from beginning to-"**

"**End." he knew I wouldn't be able to finish, "Now about your grandmother, she was great, but the Queen died several years ago, in a rock slide, but they never found her."**

"**Impossible, if they didn't find the body, she must have faked her own death and" he cut me off again and put his hand over my mouth and pulled my behind a tree.**

"**Shut up about the Queen, she's a bad omen, really rotten luck. No one talks about her, ever."**

**I mumbled a little gibberish under his hand until he removed it, "You are so lucky you didn't hear me. I said, after some cursing, that you should have told me that earlier. Now can we find that prince What's-his-name to get me home or what?"**

"**Fine. I'll help, but we have to go see my Grandmother first before we do anything."**

"**Why?" I said, disappointed masked by attitude creped slowly in to my voice.**

"**She's a sage, she knows almost as much as the Prince **_**of Hearts**_**," he annunciated the words. **

**I gave him a hard look that cut through him, "Well then let's go."**

**He beckoned me to follow him and he led me out of the grove of trees to see a meadow, spotted with cottages, from the view of a hill. I looked back at the grove of trees, wondering when the portal home would reopen. A voice in my head kept saying it won't open until you open your mind. Where were all these crazy sayings coming from?**

**I walked down with Tony, him not saying anything, I even quieter. He looked at me as I kept looking down and kicking any poor, lonely pebble that dared to get in my way. Each one splattered off, I imagined it crying and hopping home to it's family. At least it didn't have a broken family. **

"**What's your deal?" Tony asked me, a little sincerity creeping into his voice. **

"**My life." I told him about it, ending when he saw me crying beside the falls.**

"**The way I view it," he began, "is life is like your skin. The things that happen are scars. Like scars, some things heal over night, some stay there for a while, and some never go away. You can cover them up and pretend they never happened or let the world see. They can affect you little, a lot, or not at all. You don't have to get over them, but you do have to get on with them." he actually made sense, "don't feel sorry for yourself. Your parents are gone and so is your aunt. You don't have to get over, just get on with it, be strong for your uncle. He really needs you, maybe not as much as you need him, but still. You're his rock because Katarina isn't here right now to help him the way she normally would. Now let's get you back to do just that." **


	4. Fans letter I'm sorry I'm sorry

Dear Fans,

Unfortunately, I hit a writers block a week ago and the following chapter is what I have been able to write based on idea. I apologize for the past and for the future that I may not be able to continue this current event in detail and may just submit a chapter telling you the past two or three events of Tony and Abby.

Thank you, again

Aimee Coleman.


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